Authors: Bobbie Cole
If he didn’t trust himself and had no solid reason to rely on others to be with him for his wit, personality, charm or the usual social, philosophical, ethical or moral attributes most people were attracted to, what was the use of mingling, of going out, of attempting to get close to anyone else?
It had taken him months to convince himself to call the number that had played in his mind for so long. Logic dictated that the sequence of numbers was a mere random thought, nothing of consequence. It had seemed irrational to be so obsessed over it, but a thin thread of emotional attachment had wound its way into his psyche, ultimately overpowering him, urging him to call and get it over with, to put his mind at ease, even if whoever answered the phone thought he was nuts.
He’d intended to be apologetic when the owner of the phone answered, but the decidedly feminine voice had unnerved him, not in a bad way but definitely throwing his emotional state into one of unbalance and unease. He hadn’t meant to be so blunt, to force the issue the way he had. His problem shouldn’t be anyone else’s, but now that he’d reached out and sought help, the lady cop was involved. He wondered what she looked like.
“Snap out of it,” he muttered, turning down yet another long, winding corridor. “She could be old enough to be your mother.”
The mansion’s interior seemed cold, impersonal, pristine but unimaginative. He didn’t remember the house, not a single room in it. He couldn’t recall the faces in the pictures that stared back at him from photograph albums in the library and portraits lining various halls.
Now and then the cook would prepare a meal that resonated, but even then…not too deeply. It was if he’d remember the taste of the food she prepared but not necessarily the meal itself.
Mason didn’t even remember his sister, the woman with the pinched face and troubled eyes who seemed to both loathe and fear him. Her husband, Doug, was no better. Evidently, his father had left Mason the house with instructions that his sister was given license to live there if she so desired, and Dorinda definitely wanted. In fact, she’d been up his ass twenty-four/seven, and he couldn’t fathom why, because it certainly wasn’t because they enjoyed one another’s company.
He couldn’t call for take-out without her chiming in her order. Mason couldn’t go for a drive without her asking the staff where he was headed, then grilling the chauffer afterward.
It had taken him weeks after Dorinda and Doug had brought him back to the States before he realized the house was truly his and that he didn’t owe her the time of day, much less an accounting of his whereabouts. Didn’t stop the two of them from keeping tabs on him, though.
His hand reached into the soft chinos encasing his legs and felt for his cell phone. The metal felt warm against his palm, familiar and trustworthy, attributes he didn’t feel for any of the people in his life, and he wondered how long he’d been so jaded. Was he this way prior to the accident, or had he only since then developed an innate fear of living in his own skin? He hated feeling out of control and second-guessing his own personality.
Mason rolled his thumb over the small, smooth ball on the cellular device. Just knowing that someone—even if it was a woman who clearly held disdain for him—was out there, within a phone call’s reach and that she possibly held news that could enlighten him, gave him a small slice of comfort.
He’d come to realize he craved human contact yet felt as if it was foreign to his nature, which gave him more reason to wonder about the kind of man he must’ve been before waking up from the coma with a face he didn’t recognize. Who in their right mind could turn their back on connecting with others, especially if they sounded like the woman he’d spoken to tonight?
So many questions, so few people he could ask. The Mexican police had been no help. Of course, when he’d been in the coma, he’d been at his sister’s mercy and was lucky, if her demeanor was any indication, that she hadn’t pulled his life support plug. The police in Guadalajara had no interest in him. To them, he was merely a guest who frequently stayed at a villa offshore and attended business meetings with others in the same field.
Mason snorted. What field? The company with his name on it was strange, unknown to him. He didn’t remember any of the people there and had no clue how to run the damned thing.
Memory problems aside, he hoped—if not knew—that somewhere in the recesses of his brain, there was a much more interesting fellow than someone who simply oversaw the production of products that did nothing to further a living planet and whose contribution to the community was only to employ several hundred people to manufacture dishes with lids.
He’d spent several hours in the mansion’s library, going through Jasper Aldridge’s personal papers. He admired the old man’s spunk and ability to build a company from a warehouse to a complex of buildings with considerable staff by the time he died at age seventy. But while Jasper had carved a niche in an already burgeoning market, Mason didn’t identify with him on any level. Not on a personal one, nor a business one. He’d look at Jasper’s photo and feel only a hollow pit where he suspected a son’s grief should reside.
That was another thing. Who the hell was the woman in the other car, the one who had died? Her name, Marjorie Lawson, meant nothing to him, yet her face seemed familiar. The weird thing was that he could visualize her as if he’d been sitting next to her. For some reason, he kept seeing her profile when he’d close his eyes, trying to remember all he could of Mexico. But if she’d been the other driver, how was it possible that he could recall her profile?
Mason had researched, telephoned and written to various government offices in both Texas and Mexico to no avail. Nobody could tell him more than the woman’s name, and even that sounded contrived. Not that he’d have known her. She was just some woman who had apparently crashed into his sister’s car upon their leaving a business dinner. A nobody, the police had told him. None of your business, they’d added. Not his business? After all he’d been through, the surgeries, loss of memory? He had a right to know what and who had caused the accident.
He flipped through the hospital reports that the Mexican authorities had sent, the photographs he’d purchased from a travel agent, and the brochures he’d requested from the hotel where they’d stayed. All had left more questions than they’d given answers.
Maybe this is your life,
he told himself.
Maybe you’re not as interesting as you’d like to be.
Restlessly, he set aside the papers and walked across the hall to his bedroom suite. Something didn’t feel right—it hadn’t for weeks. He told himself it was the house, his room, and that he simply needed to hire a decorator. The thought nearly panicked him, though. If he didn’t know who he was or what he liked, what was the sense in spending money to have someone else tell him what he might enjoy?
His frustration built, and he threw open the double doors to his walk-in closet, which was really yet another room, one in which nobody slept, although God knew it was large enough to fit several beds comfortably. Four walls, row after row of suits, French-cuffed shirts, slacks. Floor-to-ceiling shelving with built-in shoe racks, jewelry drawers where watches and rings, tie clasps and cufflinks winked at him. Another set of sliding drawers lay open like a department store display, where silk ties lay neatly arranged by color, darkest at one end and lightest at the other.
Mason blinked, almost blinded by a headache that began at the base of his neck and peaked just behind his eyes. Instead of the pain making him tired, it jump-started his adrenaline. An overpowering feeling of being smothered, closed in or off, something he couldn’t pinpoint… What?
“Aargh!” He rubbed his eyes, forehead, cheeks, the back of his neck. What was wrong with him that he couldn’t even choose something to wear? Where would he go anyway? Why was it suddenly important for him to leave the house?
He looked…for something…he wasn’t sure what. Beautiful clothes all around. Expensive watches, leather shoes. Why couldn’t he find what he needed? The more he tried remembering, the weirder he felt, the more uncomfortable, unsure. He hated the feeling. Despised it.
Then he became frantic, searching, opening doors and drawers, shoving hangers aside, growling his frustration, growing angrier with each thrust of his arm against what felt like a concrete wall of well-crafted coats, jackets, suits, whatever his hands came into contact with—he just kept shoving, his voice rising, yelling until he was out of breath and weak with exhaustion.
He stopped, dropped to his knees in the middle of the large closet, then rolled to his back and closed his eyes, trying to regulate his breathing.
Instead of the impersonal closet ceiling above him, he imagined what he wanted, sunshine and fresh air, a countryside maybe, anything but this. He cocked his head, eyes still closed, listening for his memory to whisper the magic words he felt he was withholding from himself, and if not words maybe simply another sensation. That was it. Touch. Something soft, durable yet warm and inviting, comfortable.
When he opened his eyes, he recognized the cubicle of his self that felt empty, needing filling. His stood and reassessed his surroundings. His eyes raked the interior of the room, looking at the shambles he’d made of it. He finally knew something he must have liked…and missed. Clothing that made him feel comfortable in his own skin. Denim.
“I want to wear jeans.” Mason laughed, quietly at first then louder as he realized the breakthrough he’d just made.
Maybe in order to find his true self, he had to peel off the layers of what others had told him made up Mason Aldridge. Made him feel rather like some soulless onion, but he had to start somewhere. Shedding what didn’t work seemed the logical path toward finding what did.
Someone rapped softly on the door to his closet.
“Yes?” he called.
Phillip Pink, the butler, entered. “Mr. Aldridge, are you alright, sir?”
Mason nodded, feeling guilty. The old man looked frightened, disbelieving, as his eyes took in the sight.
“Mr. Pink, please tell Hector I wish to go out, but don’t let my sister or her husband hear you. Be discreet.” The chauffer and butler were two of the few people Mason trusted. He glanced at his watch. If he didn’t leave now, the mall would close before he got there.
Maybe while he was out, he’d have Hector drive past the restaurant where he was to meet…what was her name?
He placed his hands on his hips. Damn it, she hadn’t told him. He’d asked her two or three times, but the woman still hadn’t given him her name. He had no clue what to say when he entered the restaurant, nothing to give their staff to tell them who he was meeting. Well, hell. Maybe she’d recognize him. Otherwise, how would they connect?
Mason pulled out his cell phone. He could call her again, but the hour was late. She was already in a bad mood. Probably better for him if he just took his chances the next day.
“Mr. Aldridge.” The butler interrupted his thoughts. “Are you alright, sir?”
Mason felt a rush of chagrin. He stuffed the cell phone back into his pocket then grinned like a maniac, an expression he was certain Pink had never seen on Aldridge’s face. He walked over to the much older man, grasped him by the shoulders and did something that felt freeing but totally out of character. He hugged Pink.
“I will be, Mr. Pink. I will be.”
Pomme de Terre was a small restaurant set against a backdrop of a man-made lake and owned by a Frenchman from Louisiana. Charlie and her college roommates, Gretchen and Heather, had frequented the place for years, so when Charlie had met Seth, and he’d claimed to miss his aunt’s cooking from his childhood in Port Charles, Pomme de Terre had seemed the logical place to take him one night when they’d been looking for a place for dinner. The establishment’s fare ranged from Tex-Mex to Cajun, and Seth had loved spicy foods.
No reservations were needed, and the atmosphere was conducive to both intimacy and fun. Heather had eventually married Jason Ettienne, the owner’s son. It’d be nice to get a second pair of eyes on Charlie’s mysterious caller, since both Jason and Heather had met Seth. They could tell her whether she was going bonkers or if the owner of the voice was indeed the man who’d literally gotten away.
Heather, who served as hostess sometimes, happened to be there when Charlie arrived. “Damn, girlfriend, what brings you to the Apple of the Earth in the middle of the week? You just miss me, or do you need a friend?” She pulled Charlie aside from the line of customers to hug her.
Charlie smiled ruefully. “Both.” She explained her situation.
Heather’s blue eyes grew rounder by the syllable. “Wow. But amnesia? I mean, how else could he explain not knowing who he was?”
Charlie shook her head. “It doesn’t make sense—I’m probably just stressed and overly imaginative. Not like I haven’t thought of the guy since he split.”
“Still. I want to see him.” Heather grabbed a couple of menus. “How about facing the lake? It’s closer to the office. I want Jason to pop out and have a look, see what he thinks.”
“Great.” Charlie loved that area of the restaurant. There was something calming about water, and Lord knew she was jittery and needed a panacea of some sort.
She settled into the booth, facing the water, with her back slightly to the entrance where Mason or Seth would enter. Normally, she kept her back to a wall out of cop habit, but this time she trusted her instincts—that Heather would have her back, and Jason, if he was around, was big enough to help if she felt threatened. Not that she did. Yet. However, her stomach churned with anticipation and trepidation. If it was Seth, what would she do? She couldn’t very well blast the man for having left her if he had no clue who he was.
Get it together, Charlie.
She forced her brain to switch gears as she thought of what Rodríguez had said about her eating habits. Pain in the butt that he was, he had a point regarding her diet. While food was the last thing on her mind, she opted for iced tea instead of coffee and requested a bowl of crisp tortilla chips and salsa to munch while she waited. Not exactly what Rodríguez would have called healthy food, but she figured it was better than just coffee.
She glanced toward the water a few yards from the elevated restaurant. Instead of looking inviting, it appeared chilly, just like her mood. It would be, she thought, considering the fall weather.
Waves lapped against the rocky shore, and the reflection of autumn leaves that hadn’t yet fallen warmed the otherwise crystal blue water, giving it a less ominous presence. Unlike the icy shell her heart had developed. She didn’t want to be here, but she was damned if she’d pass up the chance to find out for sure what Aldridge wanted, other than validation.
She tensed, sensing someone approaching, but she steeled herself not to turn.
Heather’s voice was clear but professional, masking the hint of curiosity Charlie knew her friend must feel. “I believe this is your party.”
Charlie couldn’t resist sliding a sideways glance to look at his shoes and pants. Expensive jeans and Italian loafers, hardly Seth’s laid-back denim-and-sneakers look, but the man was the right height and build. Long, slim legs, big feet.
She stole a look at his hands as he placed them on the table, a natural reflex for someone sliding into a booth’s bench seat, and she had her first feeling of doubt. Dismayed, she realized she had no clue whether Seth’s fingers or hands had held any distinguishing marks. She didn’t recall any scars, and this man had none, but it was hardly enough to go on.
Finally, she met his eyes and was startled. Different face but same blue-gray orbs, the same color eyes that had met hers intimately, but there was a total lack of recognition and an expression she’d never seen in Seth’s eyes.
She looked at his hair. Same color, same hairline, but different style, so again…a good likeness, but nothing she could say was definitively Seth. Her insides churned as she looked, compared, scanned and found only glimpses of someone she might have known intimately.
He looked across the table inquisitively. “So?”
Charlie shook her head. “I don’t know. I don’t believe we’ve met.” She could swear he looked disappointed. “Give me a few minutes, though.” Then she cursed herself for dropping her guard and letting him see she cared, even a little.
Don’t get suckered into this man’s drama. You don’t need it, and he probably wouldn’t appreciate it anyway.
He held out his hand for her to shake. “Mason Aldridge,” he said, “but I’m afraid I don’t know who you are.”
She nodded curtly and gave her name as she took his hand. It was warm, and her throat went dry at its touch. A flood of sensations washed over her, and she fought hard not to get swept into the storm as memories of Seth assaulted her.
You’re just feeling that electrical current pass between the two of you because you are thinking of Seth,
she scolded herself.
He knew—he had to—that she was experiencing something out of the ordinary. He held her hand a little longer than she’d anticipated. “Are you sure you don’t know me?”
Damn. She shook her head again. Same voice, same hands holding hers. Different face. How could this be? It wasn’t fair! She tugged gently, but he kept her hand in his.
“No.” His voice was insistent but not commanding, not threatening. “Please, if you think we’ve met, if you have any idea…I need to know.”
She pulled again and finally was free of his touch. “You don’t look anything like the man I knew.”
“I’ve had facial reconstruction,” he told her.
Charlie’s guts twisted. She stared at him openly, long and hard. “Because of the accident?”
“Yes. I don’t know who I am, but I know I’m not Mason Aldridge.” His face was handsome, but it was as if he were a work of art in progress, not a completed project. It lacked a certain steel, an edge, a depth of pain and experience she’d been expecting. “Aldridge is just a name I use when I introduce myself or sign a check.”
“How do you know this? How can you be that positive you aren’t Aldridge?” she asked.
“Instinct.” He leaned back in his seat. The muscles in his jaw worked, taut skin moving over well-chiseled bones. “Something tells me that we’ve met. Your face isn’t familiar, but your voice is. We were close, intimate, I think. Please, you have to remember, because I can’t.”
Heather cleared her throat, and Charlie looked up, perturbed but grateful. She needed time to think. Placing their orders would give her the chance to gather her thoughts, choose her words carefully, so she pointed at the menu and gave her choice of entrée.
Charlie reverted to cop, noting her companion’s order. Aldridge hadn’t even looked at the menu, just asked if they served chalupas. When Heather said yes, he nodded.
No big deal. Lots of people liked that dish.
Then he called Heather back. “I forgot to make a request—double beans, no rice and extra jalapeños. Thanks.”
Heather immediately glanced at Charlie and cocked an eye. It was what Seth would have ordered.
Charlie averted her gaze as she thought, and her eyes focused on two men sitting at a booth catercorner from them. Both men were looking at them but quickly turned away as soon as they caught her staring in their direction. She realized she might have been the one being rude and immediately turned her attention back to Heather and Mason.
“Did I say something wrong?” he asked, looking at Charlie.
“What?” She reeled herself back to what he’d said. “Not at all. That’s how I get my plate, only no jalapeños.” She debated on how much to reveal and decided to keep mum as to Seth’s preferences.
“You’re spicy enough, heh?” he joked.
Charlie choked and had to reach for her glass of water. Exactly what Seth had said on occasion, teasing her about her quarter-Mexican heritage and not being true Hispanic if she didn’t like the hot peppers.
When Heather left, Mason, or whoever he was, leaned forward and spoke quietly. “Let’s lay it all out here on the table. All I know is that I’m not trying to get into your pants. I have money—and while this face isn’t mine, it’s not that bad to look at, right?”
She could tell he wasn’t looking for compliments, so she nodded slowly. “No, it’s a nice face.” She frowned, trying to discern precisely how this face was different from the one she knew. “Have you had cheek implants or an alteration here?” She brushed the back of her hand against her jaw.
“Both, plus a new nose. Evidently, my face was crushed.” He sighed. “The doctors in Mexico did their best using a photo my sister provided them.”
“Seth Taggart didn’t have a sister,” Charlie murmured before she could stop herself. Now he had a name.
“Seth,” he mused. “Even that doesn’t sound right, but it’s a start, more than what I had before I arrived. Thanks.”
Well, that’s not good, not if the sound of his own name doesn’t ring any bells.
The hope she hadn’t realized she’d been building deflated, leaving Charlie feeling once again at a loss. The push-pull conversation wasn’t tiring so much as frustrating.
“Charlene—for some reason I want to call you Charlie,” he said.
Her eyes widened. “That’s my nickname.”
“May I call you that?”
“Sure.” She squirmed but reminded herself she was a cop, a woman in what for years had been a man’s job, so it was natural for anyone with half a brain to segue from the female form of her name to a more masculine nickname.
He continued. “I don’t dye my hair—is it the same color as your friend’s?”
“Yes.”
Weird that he is so analytical and thinks like a cop, but then he’s had time to wonder about himself and how he got here since he woke up.
He persisted. “And the eyes? Even if I’ve had surgery, those would be the same color, right?”
“Yes, again. They’re the same.” Exactly the same. Charlie stifled the sigh that threatened to escape as she found herself getting lost in their depths.
“So there’s a strong possibility that I’m Seth Taggart. You said you’re a police officer? Do you think you could help me check into this man’s background, maybe find someone who might have known Seth…or me?”
Charlie sighed. “Been there, done that, I’m afraid.” She tossed aside her previous reluctance to get involved. Now she wanted to know, too, for personal reasons. “When you—that is, when Seth disappeared, I followed up on everything he’d told me about himself, which wasn’t much.”
“Oh.” He sounded disappointed. “I was hoping, no offense, that we’d been closer than that.” His eyes lowered, and he looked at her mouth then quickly averted his gaze momentarily. “Don’t take that the wrong way, please.”
She chuckled nervously and decided the present wasn’t the time to tell him quite everything. “We only knew one another a few weeks, less than a month.”
“I see. What did you find out when you looked for me?”
“I had just told you what I did for a living, and one of the reasons I figured you’d disappeared was because I’m a cop. Most men don’t handle that information well. It spooks them.”
He nodded but frowned. “Was Seth the type of man who’d mind, do you think? Because that doesn’t feel strange to me now, knowing your profession.”
“I don’t know. He didn’t tell me what he did for a living.” She shrugged. “I checked hospitals for accident victims.” She felt herself blush. “I even ran the databases I have at work, everything from the Department of Motor Vehicles for a driver’s license to Vital Statistics to trace a birth certificate. Nothing.”
“That doesn’t make sense. I drive…ah.”
She finished for him. “You have a license as Mason Aldridge. Seth Taggart didn’t have one.”
“Didn’t he drive to meet up with you when you went out?” he asked.
“No, he was always in the neighborhood or took a cab, and unfortunately, at the time, I never really noticed things like that.” She wet her lips, feeling both them and her throat go dry. “Lots of people don’t drive. Not many of them are in Texas, but the subject just never came up. I always had a vehicle, he was always on foot or nearby or something when we’d meet up.”
“Did you check other states?”
She was aware of the depth of her feelings for Seth with her next statement. Her voice was low, quiet and laced with the anger she’d sat on for months. “All fifty states, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, Guam and the Philippines. I even searched through records for an international driver’s license, the kind people get when they travel a lot overseas.”
She could tell by the slow smile that lifted the corners of his mouth that the implication she hadn’t meant to divulge had registered with him. He knew she’d had a big emotional stake in her relationship with Seth.
“You must’ve wanted to find this man pretty badly.”
“I did, for fifteen months.”
“Ah. Which is precisely when my medical records show that I was in the car crash.” He looked at her thoughtfully. “Care to tell me more?”
“Don’t look so smug,” she said, as if he really were Seth. “It’s my job.”
“But you were dating him, I take it, not looking for him because he owed you money or had committed a crime.”
She shifted in her seat, starting to get pissed off the more she thought about Seth. “Can we change the subject?”
He nodded. “If we don’t, you’ll likely make some excuse to visit the restroom or say you have an important phone call to make. I may have lost my memory, but not my sense of propriety.”
Charlie felt a chill of unease but refused to rub her arms or give any indication that she was unnerved. Telling him to discuss something else was enough of a clue that he’d upset her.